Author: Knell, Sebastian

Source: Pragmatics & Cognition, Volume 13, Number 1, 2005 , pp. 73-90(18)

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Abstract:

The paper presents an interpretation of Brandom's analysis of de re specifying attitude-ascriptions. According to this interpretation, his analysis amounts to a deflationist conception of intentionality. In the first section I sketch the specific role deflationist theories of truth play within the philosophical debate on truth. Then I describe some analogies between the contemporary constellation of competing truth theories and the current confrontation of controversial theories of intentionality. The second section gives a short summary of Brandom's analysis of attitude-ascription, focusing on his account of the grammar of de re ascriptions of belief. The third section discusses in detail those aspects of his account from which a deflationist conception of intentionality may be derived, or which at least permit such a conception. In the proposed interpretation of Brandom's analysis, the vocabulary expressing the representational directedness of thought and talk does not describe a genuine property of mental states, but has an alternative descriptive function and in addition contains a performative and a meta­descriptive element.

Keywords: Aboutness; de re attitude-ascription; deflationism; intentionality; mental representation; mental states; performative element of sense; substitutional commitment

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pc.13.1.07kne

Affiliations: 1: University of Basel

Publication date: 2005-01-01

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